X-ray diffraction study and Monte Carlo simulation of the relaxation behavior of epitaxially grown wire structures

In this contribution a model for the elastic relaxation of Al0.5Ga0.5As and ZnSe wire structures, respectively, is presented. The wire structures extend along [11-bar0] and were characterized by high resolution x-ray diffraction experiments. Based on Monte Carlo simulations, the wire structures, which have been simulated at atomic resolution, were relaxed to reduce the strain caused by the lattice misfit. The x-ray diffraction patterns calculated for the final structures reproduce the observed data. The structures display a two dimensional strain gradient and curved lattice planes. Hence the introduced modeling is a powerful method in particular to resolve the atomic structure of a wet chemically etched or molecular beam epitaxial grown wire by giving a microscopic picture on an atomic scale